A Review of What Makes Working with Charles Schwab so Important for Financial Advisors and Their Clients

While just about all investment advisors and brokers must have their client’s assets with one particular custodian, or brokerage firm, Glassman Wealth Services is different.

As fiduciaries, we are in the unique position of highlighting the value of various custodians, and have relationships with dozens of them. In fact, our comprehensive reporting brings in our clients’ account information from hundreds of different custodians on a daily basis – even for their assets that we don’t manage.

Given all the flexibility and choices that we and our clients have, it shouldn’t surprise those in the industry that most of the assets we manage are held at Charles Schwab.

Since the services that these custodians provide is mainly behind the scenes, why should a client care which custodian their advisor uses? Let me highlight a few reasons we work with Charles Schwab and the difference that relationship makes to our clients.

Knowledgeable Experts at our Fingertips

At Glassman Wealth Services, we work directly with Charles Schwab Advisor Services and have a dedicated service team who is simply a phone call away. We know everyone on the team and have been working with many of the same members for 4-5 years. The beautiful thing about having a dedicated service team is that with a single phone call (which is always answered on the first ring and no waiting period), we can discuss anything with them such as transfer of clients’ assets, account servicing, trading or any other client related item.

As important, having our own dedicated team, who are all familiar with our client accounts, builds tremendous efficiency in our back office operations, which greatly reduces time spent researching answers or processing requests. All of this helps us to serve our clients better and faster.

Enhanced Technology

We place a high value on the technology solutions that Charles Schwab provides. As financial advisors, the more efficiently we use technology, the more effectively we can communicate with our clients. The technology offered by Charles Schwab provides the information we need to communicate with our clients about the details of their accounts, trades, transfer and balances.

Charles Schwab also provides integrated technology solutions as well. Technology is one of the most important tools when providing timely service to our clients. Using Charles Schwab technologies, we have the ability to provide total portfolio performance reporting to our clients to better answer their question, “How am I doing?” Their open structure gives us the ability to tailor their technology to our specific needs, which, in the final analysis, benefits our clients.

Expert Assistance with Business Operations

We can leverage the power of Charles Schwab through their subject matter experts in a broad range of areas. They provide consulting, expertise and solutions to help us be better financial advisors to our clients, including:

• Business consulting: We have a dedicated Schwab Relationship Manager who is responsible for helping Glassman Wealth Services stay ahead of the curve within our industry. Leveraging their time and expertise allows us more time to focus on working closely with our clients.
• Client reporting: Access to the proprietary software that Charles Schwab has in order to provide comprehensive performance reporting for all of our clients’ accounts. This even includes reporting for accounts not held directly at Charles Schwab.
• Investment products and research: We have access to thousands of investment products through Charles Schwab. We also have access to highly analytical data that helps our investment team decide what investment strategies are best for our clients.
• Practice Management: Access to resources such as optimized workflows that allow our team to operate efficiently. We also receive insight on new tools or technology as soon as it is available.
• Technology: Schwab Advisor Center is a very robust platform, allowing our team to place trades, service accounts and research funds that we wish to use in our clients’ portfolios.
• Trading: Schwab’s proprietary systems allow us to trade fast and efficiently. The work flows that Schwab has created behind trading allow our firm to quickly act on our recommendations to our clients.

Having direct and timely access to proven experts in these fields, coupled with the leading technological capabilities Schwab is known for, is critical to providing exceptional service to our clients.